The present invention relates to containers used for holding ingestibles for consumption, including drinks and foods and in particular those foods that are served hot, although, it is usable with cold ingestibles as well. An ingestible can be a food product or a drink particularly those products with a high amount of free liquid, e.g., soups, coffee, tea and the like. Such containers are well known in the industry.
An example of such a container in the form of a cup may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,497. This patent discloses a formed cup having a frustoconical sidewall, a rolled upper lip and a bottom wall secured to the sidewall. A cup holder can be used to encircle a portion of the cup sidewall and includes a member that is assembled at the place of use by having opposite end portions of the cup holder provided with opposing slits to help accomplish assembly of the cup holder. The cup holder is designed to be separable from the cup and capable of being carried in a pocket, purse or brief case until need for use. The cup sidewall is then inserted into a formed cup holder. This required both close dimensioning of the sidewall and of the wrap to ensure that the wrap is properly positioned on the cup. The texture of the cup holder has nubbins and depressions creating air gaps between the user's hand and the cup. The wrap, necessarily has projecting free end portions. Other structures are known in the art, examples of which may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,979,301 which also discloses the use of a cup holder in combination with a cup; U.S. Pat. No. 2,028,566 which shows a corrugated cup holder; U.S. Pat. No. 3,157,355 which showed a plastic cup having a plurality of formed conical protrusions 33 projecting outwardly from the sidewall of the cup which is complicated and difficult to form on a paper cup; U.S. Pat. No. 3,123,276 which shows inner and outer cup portions held in place apparently by interengaging ledges when the cups are stacked or nested together; a simple structure is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,049,277 having an outer wrap overlying a portion of the cup sidewall; and a complicated structure is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,591,578.
The containers of the prior art tend to be either complex in construction, or expensive, or require manual labor at locations where manual labor is at a premium or may result in faulty containers which could lead to liability in the event assembly has not been properly achieved. Another problem is to obtain sufficient insulation particularly when a hot liquid is to be served in the container, in an inexpensive manner while still providing sufficient resistance to bending and grip capability for the user to properly handle the filled container.
Thus, there is a need for an improved container for ingestibles.